ENVIRONMENT-BRITAIN: Erratic Court Orders Boost Illegal Wildlife Trade

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, May 9 2002 (IPS) - Uncertain laws and erratic enforcement is turning Britain into a global centre for wildlife traffickers, according to an independent report.

The risk of detection is low, the rewards are huge and the damage done to endangered species is incalculable, says the study done for the World Wildlife Fund by a team of researchers from the University of Wolverhampton.

The report blames confusion from overlapping laws, and judges not taking such crimes seriously. “The attitude of judges and magistrates to such offences seems, with the odd exception, to be out of step with the determined efforts of the enforcing authorities and those developing policy responses,” says the report ‘Crime and Punishment in the Wildlife Trade’.

In Britain the average punishment since 1987 has been a fine of about 1,500 United States dollars. According to the report “there is an apparent lack of seriousness attached to wildlife trade offences”. The impact of crimes on species sustainability is “not adequately taken into account by the courts when cases are prosecuted”.

But the picture is not all bleak. Courts have of late taken firm action in a few cases, the report says. In January this year the Isleworth Crown Court sentenced Raymond Humphrey to six-and-a-half years imprisonment. He was convicted of smuggling endangered birds from Thailand to the United Kingdom.

Humphrey, who had 45 previous convictions, brought birds of prey from Thailand, packed in plastic tubes inside suitcases. Many did not survive. He was caught at Heathrow in 1997 with 23 birds in suitcases. The police raided his home and found another 54 birds of prey along with some other rare birds.

But other cases are more typical of what happens in the courts. The Renaissance Corporation admitted trading in shawls made from shahtoosh wool, which is produced from the coats of the Tibetan antelope, a critically endangered species. Up to 1,000 antelopes were killed to provide the wool for the 138 shawls which were confiscated. The confiscated shawls were worth more than half a million dollars, but the company was fined just 2,200 dollars.

In 1998 Harold Sissen was caught with six blue-headed macaws and three Lear’s macaws – a species on the brink of extinction. A breeding pair of Lear’s macaws is worth about 75,000 dollars, the report says. Newcastle Crown court sentenced Sissen to two-and-a-half years imprisonment, later reduced to 18 months. Orders were issued in September last year to seize assets worth 220,000 dollars. Sissen has appealed against the order.

Robert Sclare who ran a shop in London called ‘Get Stuffed’ was prosecuted after authorities seized a stuffed female tiger and stuffed cubs. The skin came from cubs only about two weeks old. He was convicted of forging permits. “These are very serious offences – so serious in fact that nothing but a custodial sentence will suffice,” the judge said. And sentenced him to three months imprisonment.

“We are asking for a set of guidelines to steer judges and magistrates,” Anthony Fields from WWF told IPS. Most judges do not get many such cases because prosecutions are low,” he said.

The report asks for more information to be given to judges on “the wider environmental, social, economic and cultural impacts of wildlife trade offences”. And it asks activists to work out “market disruption strategies”.

There are few informed estimates of the extent of trade in endangered species. But the report says that in Britain this trade is likely to be “second only to the illegal drugs trade in terms of its monetary value”.

Britain is estimated to be far behind the United States where fines are higher, custodial sentences given out more frequently and where judges take such crimes more seriously.

In the European Union German laws provide for up to 10 years imprisonment where lasting harm is done to a species threatened with extinction and where the motive is profit. Such firm laws are absent in most European states, the report says.

The report highlights the weaknesses of the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997 (COTES), which governs the trade of globally rare species such as tigers, rhinos and elephants within the UK.

Arrests cannot be made under these regulations. But someone caught trading rare species native to Britain could be arrested under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

“It’s bizarre that a person can be arrested for selling a common frog, which is a protected UK species, but can’t be arrested for selling a tiger or rhino – two of the world’s rarest species,” says Francis Sullivan, WWF’s director of conservation. “The law needs to be changed, allowing stiffer penalties and making offences arrestable to help police stop this scandalous trade.”

The report recommends that British judges study the COTES regulations and the Customs and Excise Management Act under which arrests can be made. The Acts can be interpreted under guidelines issued by the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union. Those guidelines in turn arise from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), though many of those guidelines go beyond CITES.

The report says Britain needs an “appropriate, workable and effective legal framework” backed by judicial and political will to enforce laws.